Real de Catorce

We’ve been in the small but beautiful town of Real de Catorce for about a week now. An old silver mining town that went bust about 100 years ago I think, it now has has a small population living among stretches of ruins. It’s absolutely spectacular…but hard walking. Real is nestled on the side of a mountain about 8000 ft (2700 meters) up, and the side streets that run up and down the face sometimes have a 60 degree slope. The roads are also made wholly out of small cobblestones, so footing can be treacherous. The first couple of days we were here we didn’t do much, just took some small walks in town and tried to get used to climbing up and down a mountain at this altitude.

Today the town apparently is sustained mostly by tourism. This is helped a lot by the writings of Carlos Casteneda and the fact that Real is purported to have the best peyote in the world; the Huichol Indians make a yearly pilgrimage to their sacred mountain nearby to harvest the cactus, and they believe the mountain gives the peyote extra potency. Of course, the cactus cannot be found here in the mountains but in the desert surrounding them. Apparently, the true heyday of peyote tourism is over though. If you read online you’ll see all sorts of things about how you’ll be routinely accosted by locals offering to drive you down to the desert so you can harvest your own trip, but in almost a week of staying here no one has offered us such a deal (although I’m pretty sure we could have found someone who was willing had we been really interested). Still, you can find all sorts of peyote knick knacks in the boutique stores and from street vendors here (along with small cosmically painted mushroom-shaped pipes, which I think are pretty cute).

To get here we had to drive through a tunnel, which was scarcely lit and too small for the bus to get through. So we had to transfer to the back of a pick-up truck. It was a fascinating ride and made you feel like entering another world on the other side. There is also a chapel in the middle of the tunnel, just a set of ornate doors set into one side of the wall half way through. Just seems like a particularly weird place to put a church.

Looking for a room the first night we came across the Hotel “El Real” which has spectacular rooms but unfortunately was too pricey for us. But they had a great map of Real de Catorce and Dawn (the receptionist there) is very friendly, always ready to give you good tips on possible walks, view points, etc. We’ve stopped by there any time we have a question, and they’ve been great telling us about the area, when busses run, or anything else happening in town. Anyhow, Dawn sent us to the Hotel “San Juan”, where we spent our first night (120 pesos/night; small dark room with bathroom, but clean and kind of pretty).

But it was cold! Even though temps were in the low 70s (low 20s Celsius) during the day we could never seem to get warm, and at night we were chilled to the bone. So the next day we wandered around looking for another place to stay, and eventually decided to make an incredibly rare upgrade. Since then, we’ve been staying at the Hotel El Rincon del Pintor where we have a room that opens onto an upstairs patio with an amazing view of the town’s church (which I’ve heard called one of the prettiest in northern Mexico) and a set of ruins called Ciudad Phantasmo (“Ghost Town”). The view sold us, and after a bit of hard bargaining we took the room for a week at 150 pesos a night. We don’t upgrade often, but this time we’re happy we did; the view is worth the price difference alone, and the family that runs the hotel is warm and friendly and has been happy to help with anything we ask. Leonardo, the owner, is also an artist and we spent one great afternoon in his art studio looking over his work, mostly landscapes of town down in a variety of media. Great pictures.

We have gotten out and done a couple of hikes around town, with spectacular views almost everywhere you go. Apparently we even saw the sacred mountain of the Huichol, although we didn’t know it when we were looking. I also sat on an unobserved cactus leaf that had fallen off and was lying on the ground – exciting, but not a lot of fun. Fortunately, Petra was there to pull the thorns out of my ass.

The town is almost shut down during the week (including most of the restaurants, unfortunately), as most of the tourists come in over the weekend. From Friday through Sunday though, it’s a giant street bizarre, lots of t-shirt and trinkets stores sprinkled with some nicer boutiques that sell jewelry and art, and some good restaurants that inexplicably seem to specialize in Italian food. Everything is a little more expensive than usual though, which really isn’t surprising for a small mountainous tourist town where everything has to be shipped up from Matehuala. There is a small “supermarket” in town which we’ve made good use of considering we don’t have a kitchen, and have been enjoying a lot of home-made guacamole and continuing with our daily bananas.

Speaking of shipping…I would hate to be one of the drivers of the delivery trucks or the occasional dump trucks we’ve seen trundling through town. The streets are narrow and, as mentioned, very steep, and driving anything around (let alone some sort of monstrous truck) would be real white-knuckle excitement. Horse and donkeys are definitely better suited to the terrain, and of course are used a lot by the locals and are rented out for day trips to the tourists. You just have to watch out not to step in dung while walking around, which fortunately isn’t usually a problem.

One other thing: about half the mountain peaks surrounding Real have crosses erected at their summits. I find it a quiet and pleasant display.